that toothless grin

This week has flown by! My goal was to write a few times a week and so far I have three blog posts started and not finished. Apparently seeing things through is something I need to work on! A lot happened this week on the small scale, no big life changing moments or decisions, just the every day stuff that makes life wonderful. The most memorable thing about this week was that Toby lost his front tooth and his little smile is so darn cute! Although this is his third "lost" tooth its the first time I've actually played the tooth fairy. He hid his first tooth from me/her and left a note saying he wanted to keep it. It disappeared a few days later and we never found it. The second one left his mouth and within seconds we couldn't find it anywhere. This one came out at school and home in a big ziplock with his name on it. So here was my dilemma, what exactly should the tooth fairy DO with said ziplocked tooth? Russ and I stood in the living room, 11:00 that night, and debated the pros and cons of both keeping it and tossing it. Keeping it seemed kid of gross but how do you toss a part of your baby into the garbage? We were on opposite sides of this one at first, he was all for keeping it and I was starting to gag just holding the ziplock. But in the end we decided we have to do what's best for Toby, and all of the boys really, because traditions are, well, traditions and one should not be started without serious consideration. The conclusion of our debate was- If any of our children grow into the kind of adult that wishes they still had a ziplock full of their baby teeth, then somewhere along the way, we really screwed up. And into the garbage it went!

Really Living

The other morning while I was scrubbing blue bubble mint sparkle toothpaste off of the family room floor and the little three were roaring loudly with the help of various vacuum cleaner hose attachments and t-ball stand parts while being accompanied by the barking dog who, being blocked by a baby gate in the hall, couldn't see that they hadn't morphed into hideous beasts twice their normal size, my mind wandered. It wandered to a place where you only have to vacuum once a day. A place where well groomed children in pastel sweater-vests play contently with organic wooden toys in a soothing, well decorated play room, no TV in sight. Sweater-vested kids don't stomp on the tube of toothpaste to see how far they can get it to squirt out.  Sweater-vested kids don't rub bricks of cheese on the wall when you're not looking and they don't cram all of their brothers in to a box and slide them down the stairs as fast as they can, hitting the wall at the bottom so hard it knocks down pictures in other rooms. Sweater-vested kids are boring and to have boring, sweater-vested kids, you have to have a boring, sweater-vested life. As much as I'd like to only have to vacuum once a day I don't want a boring life and its a good thing too because God has not called me to a boring life.

I had the opportunity this week to sit down with a new friend who is quickly becoming one of my favorite people. We are nothing alike and yet so very similar. She has been a huge source of encouragement to me during this latest Johnston transition. She recognizes that we are being called to something different and she understands when I say,  "I have no idea what it looks like or whats coming next." Her life is the same, just in a different way. She lives by faith. Excitement fills our conversation as we share stories of Gods provision and our confidence that he will continue to provide in this next chapter of  life. It all seems crazy, this life that God has called us to, but we both admit that we wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, "any other way" seems awfully boring.

The last sentence of Romans 1:17 says,

          "The righteous shall live by faith" esv

This verse has always seemed so far away and out of reach for me. Like its this "have to" that I 'm striving for. I know that my righteousness is in Christ Jesus but living by faith? What does that look like? What if it's hard? What if I hate it? But this morning I read it again, in a different version. The Message says, 

           "The person in right standing before God by trusting in Him really lives."

And then comfort. I am living a life that is crazy, exciting, sometimes scarry and always messy. Few people understand it or would ever approve of it but I'm living by faith and all that means is, I trust in Him... and I am really living.

Blog, Shmog

I am not a confident writer. I tend to ramble, I'd be lost without spell check and a few weeks ago Mr. Max spilled my coffee all over the keyboard and now the left shift button is useless. I'm left with the options of relearning how to type or going with the carefree, nothing is capitalized, look. I am not care free. So with these confessions I begin begin this blog. Not because of a passion for writing but simply because I know I'm supposed to. I get told a lot that I should write a book detailing the everyday life of the Johnston household, mostly because my kids are of the adventurous sort and will eventually be the death of me. But what these people don't know is that only one of the four J boys has a baby book, the other three just have calendars with scribbled down notes on them that will hopefully get put into a scrapbook or something before they have grandchildren. I figure that if I can't fill in the prompted blanks about baby's first tooth then a book is out of the question. So here we are, blog, and I don't know if I like you yet. Honestly, the idea of putting my thoughts and feelings on here is not a comfortable one. Combine that with the fact that I have to relearn how to type just to make you a reality and that's more than enough to make me give upon you already. But I'm studying self discipline (again) and perseverance (again) and its funny how those two pal around with obedience. So ready or not, here we go.